Room Full of Red (pretend to be numb)
by Tuesday Too
Summary: Hell is something that has a habit of coming back to haunt you. Even nine years later at a meat packaging plant in nowhere, Wisconsin. Tag to 12x18 "The Memory Remains."


_**A/N:** Warnings for references to torture/dark hell stuff. Spoilers for 12x18. Title from "Some Kind of Joke" by Awolnation._

* * *

When the freezer door slams shut, all you can see is red.

You'd forgotten how it felt, how it made your palms clammy and your lungs too small. You think of motels first, and turning alarm clocks face-down so that the red glow of the numbers doesn't haunt you all night. You think of occasionally snapping and smashing the clock against wall, or about locking yourself in the bathroom, lights on and head between your knees, and these memories aren't pleasant, but you're really trying not to think about why red light is a no-go in the first place.

But in this room, there aren't any clocks to smash or bathrooms to escape to. You're tied up and there are slabs of meat hanging from the ceiling with metal hooks gleaming red, and your brain keeps trying to worm in _red is blood is hell_ to your consciousness.

When you catch sight of Moloch's latest meal, the adrenaline rush is enough to kick your brain back into gear. Your hands pull at the plastic wrap — it's just plastic, you can tear it, you're not trapped here _(there we go, nice and secure, mmm? can't have you moving and messing up my art now, dean) —_ and even though Moloch's across the room, you can feel him — it — something — closing in. Finally, your hands tug free and the plastic falls away. You aren't trapped.

This isn't hell.

 _Getoutgetoutgetout_ is your first plan, though that's about as successful as you expected it to be. Of course _(there's no get out of hell free card)_ Pete's not gonna just open the door at your knock, and talk things over all kumbaya style.

After a quick scan of the room, you go for a weapon — a meathook _(perfectly curved, just right for holding things apart, keeping you still, hmm?) —_ and wield it in self-defense _(you're enjoying this, aren't you?),_ hold it out in front of you _(that's right, you're in control, you're the one they'll fear now),_ look through the red haze _(these bitches sure bleed a lot, don't they, dean?),_ catch glimpses of shadows _(did I tell you I know how to put on a mean shadow puppet show? it will only cost you your small intestine),_ and take a swipe at Moloch.

Swing and a miss.

You take a deep breath _(oh, son, it's not that deep, wait till I hit your spine_ ) and feel cold crack in your chest.

This is just a freezer. That's why it's so damn cold.

You're just trapped in a freezer, in some podunk town in Wisconsin, with a god named Moloch who gets his kicks off some murderous goat family. And the worst thing that can happen?

You die.

That's it. The end.

 _— — —_

 _(no need to rush this, hmm dean?_ _we have eternity together. we're gonna get so close.)_

 _— — —_

You throw your shoulder into a swing, and miss again, your back brushing against a slab of meat _(don't they look more beautiful carved up this way?)._ The cold is chilling through your bones, enough to scrape at your ribs, to burn _(mmm, do you smell that? nothing like smelling your skin sizzle to a nice perfection),_ and you take another shuddering breath, try to count.

Like when you stick your head between your legs because this isn't real, and Alastair is supposed to be down under, relegated to dark corners of memory. One—two—three— _breathe_ —one—two—three— _breathe_. You're in a freezer and you have to fight Moloch. That's all.

You're trying to keep the upper hand — or, at least, some semblance of not losing ( _it, you're gonna lose every bit of your soul that made you Dean Winchester — oh, wait. this has been you all along, hasn't it?)_ — scanning the room for moving shadows, iron held out in front of you.

You just have to hold out for Sam _(sam, sam, sam, don't you get bored of calling for your pathetic little brother who landed you in this place?)_ , or dust this sucker on your own, with a meathook. Which is probably like a toothpick to Moloch.

Well. You've faced worse.

Another swing lands you caught in slabbed meat and the rattle of chains, but you yank free in time, swing and go-iron deep in the flesh of a horned creature. You're feeling kinda queasy, but you tell yourself this is okay, this is _different_ , because there are no monsters in hell.

 _— — —_

 _(there are only two kinds of creatures in hell, dean:_

 _tortured souls and the torturers,_

 _and in the end, there isn't really any difference.)_

 _— — —_

The blow comes inevitably out of right field, and sends your head smacking against tile, stars bursting in your vision.

On the ground, limbs curled ( _make yourself as small as possible, oh, if only you could actually hide from me),_ you hear the gunshot, wait for the end, hear the creak of the _(_ rack—chains— _sometimesscreamsdon'tsoundhumandothey)_ freezer door. There's a figure in the doorway that's familiar in the way that can only mean Sam that can only mean this isn't hell.

The number one rule of hell is _no sam_.

You dimly hear a second gunshot over the roar of blood in your head and the light flickering in the monster's chest in front of you is too bright _(get used to the dark, son. there's no light in hell),_ and Sam's voice cracks an almost-joke, in a voice that's too unsteady to be an imitation. Your brother's face is pale, even in the red, and you know the freezer temps don't do a number on body temperature quite that fast.

And while your hell may have burned hot, you still remember that abandoned apartment in Detroit where the devil told you he burned cold. Sam's survived broken walls and hallucinations, and a return trip to the damn cage, and this room is not what his screwed up custard needs.

If you're cracking up, you don't really want to think about what this place is doing to the guy who nearly tripped hell's bells to death.

 _— — —_

 _(worried about sammy, are we?_

 _don't worry -_ _he's not going to hell, not yet -_

 _we've got big plans for that kid._ _)_

 _— — —_

You try to say something reassuring, something grounding, something that freaking shouts _I'm stone number one, Sammy, you hear?_ But it's all you can do to look at Sam and that's it, just look at Sam, because you know that there's no Sam in hell _(what do you think little sammy would say if he could see you now, dean?)._ You're making desperate eye-contact that maybe in any place other than a red-lit freezer would feel stupid or chick-flicky, but right now you just hope it's enough to keep both of you off the crazy train.

Your head's still dizzy from the hits in a way that's tilting everything alarmingly so that even Sam's face loses its Sam-ness. Kneeling your forehead down on freezer-room tile, you close your eyes, and tell yourself there won't be red when you open them. Just Sam.

You lay there, just existing somewhere in your head, somewhere faraway _(you really think you can tune me out?)_ until you hear your name.

Dean.

Then, right next to you, with a hand on your shoulder (but that's okay because this is _samsamsam_ ):

Hey man, you okay?

Yeah, you say, cough out ice particles. Your close-up of Sam's scrunched up face almost blocks out everything else. You add, Let's get out of here.

You watch the way Sam's head dips, free-falling before it catches itself and snaps back up. He grips your hand and pulls you up, slinging on arm around cause neither of you are quite steady. When you stand, you get a faceful of red again and try to keep your eyes off the hooks and the chains, focusing on the arm and side you're pressed up against.

Half-way to the door, you swallow and close your eyes and hate it _(I have to say, I expected more from you after spending some time with your daddy)_ because you're putting it all on your brother to get you both out of here. You just vaguely move your feet, listen to the hitches in Sam's breathing, and press in a little tighter because _(there's no sam in)_ hell burns cold.

Finally, you're out of the freezer and your knees are ready to take a break right there, but Sam's urging you toward a pile of crates, farther away from the door, far enough away that you can't feel the cold through the walls. He sits you down then kind of just slumps down himself. The kid's still too friggin pale.

You extend a not-quite-steady hand to rest on Sam's shoulder, and speak through chattery teeth. "We did it. _"_

Sam nods and huffs a shaky laugh. "Yeah. We did."

You both just sit there for a while, until the hammering of your heart is no longer physically painful, and Sam's looking less like he just got drained by some ghouls. He goes off to find something for your head, and then hesitates, cause look where you are. So you suggest a nice frozen steak, and Sam turns to give you a look. You hold his gaze. He comes back a minute later with a steak and hands it over like he's handing you a stick of dynamite. You shove it onto your face before Sam can worry or you can stare too long and let your brain process what your ice-pack is.

Sam goes off to check on the goat brothers, and you watch him keep his hands shoved in his pockets the whole conversation. When he comes back, he crouches down — the stance you use for dealing with trauma victims — and says, "Hey. How you feelin'?"

You pull your ice-pack down to show you're A-okay, to show yourself it's just a steak, and say some phrase meaning fine with just the right amount of humor for Sam to swallow your non-answer. You try to ignore the cold-hot pins and needles that are starting up all through your body.

When you finally make it out of that stupid plant, you take in the arching sky, listen to the hum of Baby's engine starting up, and finger a tear in the leather seat that you need to fix up. Hell feels different, you remind yourself.

 _— — —_

When you get back to the bunker the next day, you're really okay.

You ask Sam what your legacy is going to be after all the stuff you've done _(did I tell you, dean? word's starting to get around about the talent of my new pupil)_ , and you aren't so vain that you need to be remembered forever as some world famous first-class hero, but when Sam says people aren't gonna remember, all you can think is you need your topside legacy to outlast your hell one _(come on, dean, you have to be creative, carve something they'll remember forever)._ Just in case, you leave your mark on this world, two little scratchings inevitably tied to your brother.

You think maybe that's enough.

That night you say goodnight to Sam then spend the whole night with the lights on, sprawled in an uncomfortable wooden chair, staring at the new carving on the table. Around 3 a.m. Sam comes in, scrubbing at a haunted look on his face, then grabs a beer for each of you. Neither of you say anything. You tilt your bottles toward each other in a toast, then drink, gazing at the pair of initials on the table.

(There's no Sam in hell.)


End file.
